Sliding to Six
by Nix Entente
Summary: Loved his life, really. Sometimes though--not enough to say anything, of course--he wished it was more his than anyone else's.


Notes: Hey kids, it's me, back for a short amount of time. Just got done watching my lastest vindication--the Speed Racer movie. You needn't have watched it for this fic, but I have to admit that I had chubby cheeks Emile Hirsch in mind when I wrote it up. Just some thoughts that stemmed from the realization that Speed doesn't do anything different from Rex until the Grand Prix--a race that Rex never ran and in a car that Rex never drove. It was entirely his own, for the first time, and that made me kind of sad.

Title: Sliding to Six

Rating: K. It's all I ever write, it seems.

Soundtrack: "Now That You're Gone," Fernando Ortega.

_""I took myself a hammer. I went out to that car and I did a number on it's underside. Whacked it up. Bent the tail pipe double. Ripped the muffler loose...It just about hurt me, I'll tell you that! I threw dirt in the carburetor and I ripped all the electric tape off the seats. I made it look just as beat up as I could."_

_ -from "The Red Convertible, Louise Erdrich_

Speed would never complain. He used to be a pretty vocal kid, or at least that's what Mom always said. Said he used to talk all the time, loud as anything about cars and racing and Rex. But since Rex was dead and he wasn't allowed to race for several years after, talking didn't seem useful or necessary. Even after he finally got to hit the tracks, he stayed real quiet a lot of the time. Spritle gave Mom and Pops enough to worry about that he tried to keep anything less important than a real bad report card to himself. Besides, it wasn't as though he really had anything to complain about. He was Speed Racer. His parents adored him, he had a real great girlfriend and probably the nicest car of anyone he knew, and despite the occasional bad media coverage, the whole gang had managed to avoid any really rough times for the most part.

But lately he couldn't fit into his own skin. It had been bugging him for a while now. Ever since he started racing the Mach 5. He knew that car inside out. She snapped into him like a jigsaw puzzle piece. Every quirk was iron hard into his brain, and he knew exactly what that car wanted. Thing was, seemed like the car only wanted Rex. Sure, he could control her and she would listen, but the old Mach 5 never fit him just right. It was like wearing pants a size too big. He could make it look stylish, but deep down he knew that he was just making do with whatever he had. He could race the Mach 5 best of anyone around, but he knew that he was just replacing Rex.

It wasn't just the car. He would never complain, but that bedroom was so old and small and everything still smelled like it did when Rex was around. When he was twelve, Pops said he could have the room because they needed to put the baby into his room, and he was real excited. That first night, Mom washed the bedsheets and the blankets and the pillow. They were dusty, really dusty. Even after all that, when he laid down and set his head on the pillow, all of a sudden the smell came up heavy and rich and old. He didn't sleep too good. When Mom was boxing up all the clothes they'd left in that room, she could smell it too. She kept putting the shirts up to her face and sighing, and Speed pretended to be watching cartoons while she tried not to cry.

They might as well have just left the clothes in the room. Something to aspire to. Speed wouldn't complain, but maybe they should have just renamed him and pretended the first kid didn't happen.

Even those keys. Rex gave them to him the night he left. It was raining noisy, and he stayed awake all night in his old room that smelled like him. (It smelled like Spritle now, like Speed was never there.) Even then the keys felt too round and full. They were heavy and sturdy, like Rex. Red was Rex's color too. Speed was never made for red. He kept the Mach 5 like it was for a long time though. Still felt like Rex's car, so it couldn't be right to change it. When he was sixteen, he tried. Pops was kind of horrified, but he tried real hard to hide it. He even helped do the job. They repainted the car all new and white, cleaned it out real nice. Halfway through, he almost said to Pops that they should stop. Felt wrong to cover up Rex's colors. He didn't. They tried to make her his. She wouldn't change though. Still chafed against him like she just didn't fit properly.

She fit okay though. At least she looked like she could be his. And he loved the Mach 5. He loved his family. Loved his life, really. Sometimes though--not enough to say anything, of course--he wished it was more his than anyone else's. Someday, he'd have his own. He'd walk into the room and it would smell like him, and he'd lay on the bed and feel like himself. He'd enter a race, and people would say his name without talking about anyone else before him.

Someday, he'd slip into that car, and she would thrum for him like he always wanted. He'd take Spritle out for a drive, teach him how a car feels, how she works. Or maybe not.

_"A few months ago, I don't know why, I got his picture out and tacked it on the wall...I don't know what it was, but his smile had changed, or maybe it was gone. All I know is I couldn't stay in the same room with that picture."_


End file.
